the game animator's guide to maya (2006)

[...]... Welcome to The Game Animator’s Guide to Maya! Whether you’re a current animator in the game industry or looking forward to becoming one, this book will help you learn the skills and techniques you need to become successful INTRODUCTION ■ viii When I first began to use Maya, the greatest learning tool I ever found was studying the work of those actually doing the job I wanted and striving to be like them... is as follows: Design In the design stage of the production pipeline, writers and designers play a crucial role in the development of a game They are the ones who actively give birth to the idea that eventually becomes a game you see on the shelf They come up with the story, script, and the overall game play When the writers and designers are ready, they pass their ideas on to the concept artist Concept... entirely owned by their publishers One example is Nintendo In addition to being the originator of the Nintendo brand gaming consoles (Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Revolution, and Nintendo DS), they are also the developer Their trademark games, such as Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, are games they create themselves using teams of developers under their employ Second-party developers These independent... that is left in the art production part of this pipeline is adding the eyecandy effects The FX artists can use any number of tools to jazz things up They usually use custom tools developed for the game in question Once the model’s journey through the art pipeline has completed, the model is exported to the programmers Programming While the artists were hard at work creating this model, the programmers... at their own workstations They created code for the express purpose of giving the completed model the necessary attributes to make it behave and react as expected Before an art asset can be utilized in a game, however, it must make one more trip—this time to the level designers Level design Using custom tools, the level designers place the newly completed character into a level in the game, ready to. .. Also on the CD is the Maya Personal Learning Edition 7 (Maya PLE 7), the free version of Maya that gives you access to Maya Complete for noncommercial uses Everything in the tutorials is capable of being done with this free version, and the software runs on Windows 2000/XP Professional and Mac OS Careers in the Game Industry For many aspiring digital artists, a job in the game industry is the dream... in place, the character can travel to the animator, so to speak Animation With the animation controls in place, animation can commence The animators will perform any number of actions with the model, as if they were manipulating a marionette—a highly complex, digital marionette, but a puppet just the same When the finished model’s performance actions are approved, the model can then go to the FX artists... watching the animation unfold to experiencing the action as if we were there And through video games, we are not only there in the thick of things, but we have become the stars of the show, dictating the results of the action As the art of animation has grown and evolved over the years, certain common terms and techniques have been developed along the way We’ll discuss these terms and techniques in the. .. somewhat from the experience ■ ANIMATION CONCEPTS Figure 2.5 It’s easy to tell how flexible these two dropped balls are by how they react to the impact A good alternative would be to try to incorporate a little of both straight-ahead and pose -to- pose as you work Plan out the major, story-driven keyframes to act as your guide through the scene, but remain flexible with them, going through the scene and... artists receive the documents that describe the game s characters and world They visually interpret the ideas, creating dozens of sketches and paintings before they finally find that perfect look for the game This is an important step in the development of a piece of game art When a concept has been completed and approved by the art director, it moves on to the modelers Modeling A modeler takes the approved . 237 3857ftoc.qxd 5/11/06 4:39 PM Page vii viii INTRODUCTION ■ Welcome to The Game Animator’s Guide to Maya! Whether you’re a current animator in the game industry or looking forward to becom- ing. alt="" The Game Animator ’ s Guide to Maya ® Michael McKinley Wiley Publishing, Inc. 3857ffirs.qxd 5/11/06 4:37 PM Page i